


drinking, drowning some riot

by engmaresh



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: 79's - Clone Bar, Gen, Grief/Mourning, POV Outsider, Post-Episode: s04e10 Carnage of Krell, Post-Umbara
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 06:43:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10714278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/engmaresh/pseuds/engmaresh
Summary: In 79's, the Clone Bar, Chaa Yanto tends bar, tends hearts, tends wounds. Mostly the latter. Every day the wounds get deeper.





	drinking, drowning some riot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nary/gifts).



Chaa Yanto hadn’t actually counted on being a bartender. But after first dropping out of the Coruscant University of Art and then a second time out of Coruscant Tech, all three of his parents had started dropping hints that they’d just about had it with his indecisiveness and that it was high time to start taking care of himself. He’d bounced around a while, waiting on tables at some of the mid-range restaurants that could afford to hire biological sentients on their staff, joining a self-sufficient art commune with a boyfriend for a year before getting dumped, then working as a kaff barrista for a few months after that. A zefriend had then hooked him up with a bartending job at zirs place, and when ze had told him that ze was going to open another bar catering just to clones, and that ze needed a biological overseer to manage the droid waitstaff, Chaa had leaped at the opportunity.

It had been a bit odd at first. Chaa had no idea where Vy advertised the bar, or how ze’d even gotten the idea in the first place, but after a slow start, clones had started trickling in. As the manager, Chaa hadn’t expected to do more than keep an eye on the droids and do the bookkeeping, but it turned that clones weren’t your usual customers. He’d found out on his second night that most hadn’t ever had an alcoholic beverage in their life, let alone been drunk before. They had no idea what the difference was between beer or wine or liquor, or even the concept of alcohol tolerance. The night had ended with half a dozen clones passed out on the floor, over tables and in the fresher, and Chaa had been forced to deal with a very irate commander with a blond crewcut who wanted to know what had been done to his men. The next day, after a long planning session with Vy, Chaa had taken over the bar, offered beer and wine flights to curious clones, and taken hard liquor off the menu entirely for the first month.

Now, after a year, he had regulars. There was Quark, who only drank Ebla beer, and when drunk would wax poetic about explosives. Nu enjoyed alternating his lagers with sugary cocktails, the brighter the better. He was a medic, didn’t talk much and spent most of his time in a corner watching the rest of his fellow clones. But he smiled every time Chaa came over to refill his drink or ask him how he was. He had a lovely smile. Kal favoured civilian clothing, Zeltron males and Corellian Brandy. Blade had been named after his love for knives, and when he was soused enough, could be persuaded into a game of knife throwing. Chaa never won any of those games when the clones managed to talk him into joining them, but they always seemed to have fun, so he didn’t mind those two hundred credits he ended up losing in wagers to several clones.

They paid for their drinks. All of them paid, and insisted upon it. They might have been an involuntary army created specifically for war, and Chaa, following the news, had heard that at first the Senate had tried to wheedle out of it, but every single clone was paid a stipend, and it seemed that the stipend was sufficient for buying several rounds of drinks every time they were back on Coruscant. Most of them tipped too, even though Chaa was making a perfectly comfortable living with this job.

Of course, this was war. It had been hard at first, dealing with the fact that many of the faces that he’d learn to distinguish would never return again. Hardest so far had been Vari, who’d managed to talk Chaa into joining him for drinks, then crawled over the bar and made out with him in the backroom. Died when his ship had depressurised after being blown up by a Separatist heavy cruiser. Chaa had made sure to avoid any kind of physical or emotional entanglements with the clones after that. Too painful. And yet he wasn’t the one being shipped out to die every other day. The coward civilian who got to stay alive in a safe, cushy job thanks to the sacrifice of all the men he served at Seventy-Nine.

Today was very much like every other day. Made sure the droids were doing their jobs, chased away some of the sleazier streetwalkers that liked to hang around and hook the fresher clones (shinies, he’d heard the veteran clones call them), greeted the few regulars who drifted in (Bomba, Kix, Gatt, Trip) and mourned the loss of those who’d never return (Hardcase, Nod, Uno, Ives, Combo and so many others). Those who passed got their names written down on a holopad he kept under the bar. It numbered it the thousands, and those were just the clones who’d shared their names with him. There were so many who just came in for a drink, ordered from a droid, left and never came back again.

He slid over two Kowakian Pale Ales across the bar, then almost walked into CeeCee who’d sauntered up behind the bar (it still amazed him that they’d managed to program a droid to _saunter_ ) and blinked slowly at him, the lights in her photoreceptors mimicking the biological function with almost uncanny similarity.

“Yes?” he asked her. He hoped there wasn’t anyone having sex in the ‘fresher again.

“It’s Kix,” she said. “He’s past the limit, and keeps asking for more. I think you should talk to him.”

Chaa nodded. It looked to have been a bad day for the 501st. Several of them had staggered in and proceeded to get themselves utterly wasted. He’d added about thirteen names to his list today. Of all of them, he knew Ives and Uno best, and Hardcase by reputation, but every loss still felt like a lead weight in his stomach.

Kix had abandoned his usual seat near the tap in favour of one of the booths, and was now stretched out along the bench, one arm curled under his chest, the other dangling to the floor. A bottle lay on its side inches from his fingers. Still dressed in his armour, he looked uncomfortable, cramped and utterly defeated.

“Hey,” said Chaa, approaching carefully. After one year he’d learned how to move in order to avoid triggering flashbacks in confused, drunken clones. “Wanna talk?”

“No. Jus’ gimme another drink.” With his face mashed into the seat of the bench and with the din of the bar, Kix was barely audible.

“Sorry, can’t do that,” Chaa told him.

“Blast it,” Kix muttered. “Just give me a flaming drink.” He pushed himself up into a sitting position and made face. Chaa, having anticipated that, lunged forward with a pail just as all the alcohol violently exited the clone’s stomach.

It took a while for retching to turn to dry heaves, and Chaa had a cleaning droid come clear away the vomit as he poured Kix some water. “Drink,” he said. “Medic's orders.”

“Ha,” said Kix flatly, “funny,” but he drank anyway, tipping the glass back until nothing was left.

They sat there a while, watching the more subdued crowd slowly drink away the horrors of the war. Kix tipped his head back against the seat, staring at the ceiling. “I can’t save any of them. Even if I keep them alive one day, it’s only so that they can die another time.”

“What happened?”

“Classified.” Kix sighed, a deep, bone-weary sigh, and slumped against Chaa’s shoulder. The clone was a few inches shorter than him, and Kix’s bristly haircut tickled against Chaa’s bare arms. From this angle he could only read a part of Kix’s tattoo, A GOOD DEAD.

“What happened to Hardcase, Uno and the others?”

“Classified.” Much info on the clones was classified, but while browsing the Holonet, Chaa had come across some kind of expose about the clones, that they’d all been grown at an accelerated rate over a period of ten years. Here he was, getting ten-year-olds drunk, teaching them swear words and how to get laid. Kriff, he’d made out with a ten-year-old. He quickly put that thought out of his mind.

“That’s...new.” Usually cause of death was one bit of info the clones could share about their dead. No location, no mission or general names, but death by depressurisation, explosion, blaster fire, that all was fine. They’d drink, make bets, share their preferred cause of death. Gallows humour. Chaa bought the rounds every time the mood in the cantina took that kind of turn.

“You wouldn’t want to know anyway,” Kix murmured.

Maybe not. But Chaa felt that he owed it to them.

A shadow fell over them. Chaa looked up.

“Mr Yanto.”

Kriff, he recognised the stripes and the hair, but he couldn’t remember the name. Never came in, except to pick up his wasted men. “Commander. Um.”

“It’s Rex. And don’t ‘sir’ me, you’re a civvie.”

“Right.” Chaa gently settled Kix on the bench and slipped out of the booth. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

“No, thank you,” said Rex, though he looked like he could clearly use one. Or two. An entire bar. The skin around his eyes was tight with shadows beneath them, and the dark stubble on his cheek provided a stark contrast to his light hair. “How’s Kix?”

“Threw up. Just make sure he stays hydrated and he’ll be fine. Heard you guys don’t get hungover.”

“We don’t,” said Rex, and moved over to the booth to scrape Kix off the bench. “On your feet, soldier,” Chaa heard him mutter. Kix swore, but after some fumbling and banging his shin on the edge of the table, managed to get to his feet, though he had to hold on to his commander for balance.

“Has he paid his tab?” Rex asked, and Chaa nodded. 

“Yeah, he’s good.” He got out of the way as the two clones started making their way to the door. When Rex stopped he almost called for a bin, thinking Kix was going to throw up again. Instead the commander fixed him with an intense stare that made Chaa take a step back. But Rex didn’t smash him in the face for getting Kix wasted.

“Thank you for taking care of my men.”

Chaa couldn’t meet that gaze, guilt pooling in his stomach. He looked away, down at the sticky floor.  _ I just get them drunk  _ he thought, but what he said was, “Just doing my job. And, um, if you ever need a drink, we’re always open. Every day of the week, after 1400 hours.”

Rex nodded, and he and Kix slowly shuffled their way out, the other clones parting before them. Chaa slipped back behind the bar. A clone was standing apart of the rest, staring up at the signage above the bar with a rather blank look on his face.

“Hey,” said Chaa, “can I help you?”

The clone blinked. He wasn’t anyone Chaa remembered. His hair had been shaved into lightning bolts that darted back around both sides of his head. The point of tattoo jutted up over the neck of his bodysuit, but the armour was clean, pristine. A new one–a shiny.

“Um, a drink?”

“What kind of flavours do you prefer? Light, fruity, something deeper?”

The clone looked at him blankly. Okay, definitely a shiny. Chaa pulled him a Corellian Summer Pilsner, something light for a beginner. When the clone pulled out his credit chip Chaa waved away. “It’s on me,” he said. “Just want your name.” 

“Bev.”

Bev, Bev with the lightning bolts. Chaa made sure to remember it. Kriff, he wanted nothing more than to hide in the backroom for a while and have a good cry for Uno, Ives and the rest, but this kid needed him more. 

He gave Bev a smile, and the clone’s stoic face split into a similar grin. Oh, this one had a nice smile. “So,” Chaa said, “first time on Coruscant?”

  
  
**_fin_**  

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Some Riot by Elbow.


End file.
